A need has been recognized for devices and methods for measuring spectral, color or other optical characteristics of skin, hair, teeth and other objects, and for predicting or otherwise determining cosmetics (such as foundations), color preparations, restorations or other processes based on such measured optical characteristics. Reference is made to the following applications, which are hereby incorporated by reference, which disclose various systems and methods for measuring various objects and related systems, methods and technologies: U.S. application Ser. No. 09/091,208, filed on Jun. 8, 1998, which is based on International Application No. PCT/US97/00126, filed on Jan. 2, 1997, which is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/581,851, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,229, issued Apr. 28, 1998, for Apparatus and Method for Measuring Optical Characteristics of an Object; U.S. application Ser. No. 09/091,170, filed on Jun. 8, 1998, which is based on International Application No. PCT/US97/00129, filed on Jan. 2, 1997, which is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/582,054, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,759,030 issued Jun. 2, 1998, for Apparatus and Method for Measuring Optical Characteristics of Teeth; PCT Application No. PCT/US98/13764, filed on Jun. 30, 1998, which is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/886,223, filed on Jul. 1, 1997, for Apparatus and Method for Measuring Optical Characteristics of an Object; PCT Application No. PCT/US98/13765, filed on Jun. 30, 1998, which is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/886,564, filed on Jun. 30, 1998, for Apparatus and Method for Measuring Optical Characteristics of Teeth; and U.S. application Ser. No. 08/886,566, filed on Jul. 1, 1997, for Method and Apparatus for Detecting and Preventing Counterfeiting. Reference also is made to PCT App. Ser. No. PCT/US03/05310 filed on 21 Feb. 2003, which is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/081,879, filed on 21 Feb. 2002, both of which are also hereby incorporated by reference. Reference also is made to U.S. application Ser. No. 11/374,446, filed on Mar. 13, 2005, for System and Method for Preparing Dental Restorations, which also is hereby incorporated by reference. Reference also is made to Provisional U.S. Application Ser. No. 61/852,136, filed Mar. 15, 2013 for Light to Frequency Converter with Electronic Bias and Adjustable Gain, which also is hereby incorporated by reference. The foregoing patent documents are sometimes referenced collectively herein as the “Referenced Patent Documents.”
Attempts have been made to measure skin, teeth, hair and other parts of the body with a variety of different implements with varying degrees of acceptability. For example, systems in accordance with the Referenced Patent Documents have been used to measure and shade match teeth in a commercially desirous manner. Other attempts to measure skin have been less successful, and the need remains for systems and methods that measure skin, that process data resulting from such measurements to compute color values and/or predict shade or cosmetic products, and that communicate data resulting from such measurements (or product selection or sales data) to external computing and/or storage resources.